Leap of Faith Redux
by smileyanne
Summary: What if McGee hadn't been able to pull Tony up in Leap of Faith 5x05? NO SLASH And guys, this isn't McGee bashing!


a/n: If you are one of my followers that follow me for:

_**JIBBS** _stories: Hang with me on this. The reason why I haven't published that many stories with JIBBS lately is because those usually tend to be ones that are much more serious than little one-shot episode tie-ins. I will be posting some MAJOR stories with JIBBS soon. Including another chapter of the Next D.C. Power Couple. (SPOILERY TYPE THING-If any of you remember the story 'Not Her' that I started a while back? Well it's coming back under a new name soon!)

**_Borin/Gibbs_** (since I don't know a shipper name for them) stories: So since I just started writing a few. I was wondering if you would read anymore if I published some? After all it's not worth writing if no one is going to read them...

And...**_Tony & Gibbs_** stories: Gear up because I have quite a few after this one. (If you like this one of course!)

Now I don't quite remember everything from this episode. It's been a while since I've seen it, but I think I remember a lot of it. Beside since I'm already tweaking it to make it for the story. I figure I can get away with a few differences.

DISCLAIMER: I DON'T OWN NCIS

* * *

><p>The wife had done it.<p>

The wife always did it.

Now, here they were here, trying to lure the cat out of hiding-

'No,' wrong metaphor. They already had the cat out of hiding. What they were trying to do was more like trapping the rat.

Running circles and circles endlessly through this spiral of concrete, Tony had to fight constantly against the surge of nausea that threatened to overwhelm him. It wasn't that he had any particular form of motion sickness, and running the way he was wasn't exactly taxing.

The nausea wasn't from the height either. Though he was on the seventh level of the structure, he wasn't exactly that high up.

'Though, I'm sure McGee's having a great time of it.' A small portion of his mind snickered harmlessly. McGee was maybe a level or two below him, and below him he was sure Ziva and Gibbs were concocting on the fly some way to keep the wife from escaping through the bottom exits.

And in a perfect world, where plans made by the most Senior Field Agent in the MCRT sedan on the way to the scene, worked out. Then things might have gone along the lines of this...

Tony would have encountered the wife. Without the use of the gun that was currently being held in his right hand, he would try and bring her in. If she ran, he did not have to pursue, and he did not have to be the one to use firepower.

The wife would've encountered McGee then, if she ran past Tony. And if she passed the Probie, then he Tony would've leisurely been on her tail.

The next two people the wife would've encountered would have been the end of her. By the time she reached those two people on the first floor, he and Probie would've been right behind her-blocking the exit up.

Either they would've managed to get her in cuffs with minimum scratches, or Ducky would've had have been called.

Neither way allowed the wife to leave peacefully, her pattern of behavior indicating it more than the conscious decisions of the gun-wielding NCIS agents.

Still, this wasn't a perfect world, and things didn't work out the way they would have in one.

Instead of encountering the wife on the very top level, like the plan had been. Tony was still on the seventh level when he heard the roar of a car starting...

From above him.

Maybe it was some primal sort of instinct, the type that actors portrayed in bad horror movies, which made him freeze in place.

Maybe it was another instinct that set his brain into overdrive. Ridiculously trying not to figure out how to save himself from what was most certainly imminent danger, and instead trying to think of a half-cocked plan to save the original half-cocked plan.

And...maybe that was his mistake.

A car that was very much not slowing down, came around the concrete bend, and Tony held no misconceptions that it would be slowing for him. He had about twenty seconds exactly of unharmed time to act like a deer in headlights. And by the twentieth second mark, the car was close enough for him to see the face behind the steering wheel.

'Move it DiNozzo,' a voice growled in his head, and if he were feeling-or had time-to be more dramatic. He might have even exaggerated on the fact that he could've sworn he felt a very physically there slap to the back of his head. Instead, in prefect tandem with the car that was about to run him into a concrete wall, he leaped.

He leaped in the only direction he could-over the side.

Ten fingers grasped at the top of the concrete barrier that helped to prevent cars-but not people-from going over.

And with that, Anthony DiNozzo found himself dangling helplessly in the air.

* * *

><p>Gibbs wasn't in any particular hurry. As far as he was concerned, this would be an easy takedown of another terrorist. And without any casualties on his end either.<p>

He looked across to the other side of the dim concrete space. Shrouded in shadows he could see the profile of his newest agent, Ziva David, though-Ziva hadn't been a new agent in a long time.

His grip tightened reflexively on the gun in his hand. Rolling his shoulders back, he took a shallow breath. Not because he was worried, more like he was preparing himself for whatever inevitably was going to go wrong.

Because they didn't live in a perfect world, Gibbs had learned that the hard way. And it was emphasized every day to him because of the fact that the job he did even had to exist.

"Think they can do it?" The soft spoken words floated across the dank space to him.

"Yes," he answered shortly. He knew she resented the fact that he hadn't sent her up there with them. But Gibbs had had his reasons for that.

If possible, he wanted to trap the wife/terrorist down on the ground level. They weren't exactly sure which level of the spiral she was on, and not knowing what she may or may not have at hand. Gibbs had preferred to try and herd the woman down if possible, if not-then either McGee or Tony would bring her down.

And Gibbs, leaning against the hood of the sedan, his familiar gun in hand, had Ziva by his side guarding the other exit.

Gibbs hadn't kept Ziva down there with him for his own personal reasons. If he had been looking for nervous twitching and awkward attempts at conversation, he would have kept McGee with him. If he had been looking to quell the slight twinge of nausea he felt in his stomach with smooth-talking, he would have kept Tony down here with him.

Keeping Ziva down here, it hadn't been about trusting her to watch his back-though he did. Explicitly.

If he had kept an agent down here for the sole purpose of watching his back, DiNozzo would have been the one down here with him. Not that Ziva hadn't proven herself enough to him by murdering her half-brother, but because-Ziva was still a new, untamed, presence at his back.

DiNozzo was old, steady, and familiar.

And Gibbs had to wonder if an intimidating figure to the suspect outweighed a steadying presence at his back. He thought, for only a split-second, that yes it did. If only to ease the twisting in his gut.

Something was going to happen soon.

Right on cue, he heard something. It was a faint sound, and even though his eyesight might be rumored to be shot. His hearing was well intact.

Ziva had picked up on the sound too, turning towards him-she waited for his cue.

In a few long strides, he had reached the low concrete wall that was supposed to stop the tires of cars from going over. Leaning forward slightly, he tilted his head up, looking for the source of the commotion.

High-up, many floors above him, and slightly to the left him, he saw the blur of an automobile. Taking the corners far too sharply, the car spun farther and farther down-going in and out of his line of sight.

He was silent, observing the scene with his sharp eyes, and it wasn't until the car came back into his sight for the third time. Did he think to wonder where the hell his agents at were?

His question was answered for him far too soon for his comfort.

As the careened around another enclosed corner on his left, his eyes followed the track it would take. And Gibbs saw in the course, an impediment, something-someone-who was reduced to only a tiny figure from his distance away.

He was silent-waiting for the sound of gunshots that should've been coming already.

His gut was in pain now, watching as the unyielding automobile ate-up the distance between it and the unmoving figure.

The car got closer, and closer, and Gibbs should've done something already. The moment he realized that their suspect had a car at her disposal, he should've alerted DiNozzo and McGee. He Ziva should've already been ready for a quick shootout of the tires, and a close ranged spinout.

Once he realized that that car was headed towards an unmoving figure that was undoubtedly one of his agents. He should have...done...something, he should be screaming and taking furtive shots at the car.

He watched as the unmoving figure suddenly sprang into action.

He watched as one of his agents nosedived over the ledge.

He watched as fingers managed a last minute snag at the edge.

The car continued on, and one of his agents-

No. No. He damn well knew which of one of his agents was currently dangling stories high in the air.

Pushing off from the wall-Gibbs sprang into action.

* * *

><p>A strained cry of, "help!" was cut off by Gibbs' own voice and the sound of the blood rushing in his ears. Turning Gibbs' had come face-to-face with Ziva who had apparently yelling at him during his catatonic state.<p>

In a run that was meant to be more efficient than pretty, he ignored the spitting Israeli and took off towards the sedan. Yanking the door open, he looked at her.

"Go," he ordered in a tense voice, jerking his head in the direction she knew to run, "we'll have to cut her off."

And Ziva was gone, wicked and graceful in her running form.

He gave her the slight head start that she would need, praising his marine training. He flicked the keys that were already in the ignition. The roar of the engine of the sedan sounded comforting, until the noise was cut across with another yell of, "somebody help!"

The driver seat door wasn't even shut when he took off. Bright orange, streaked and jumped across the speedometer as he took off at a highly in appropriate speed. One leg half ready to make a jump, he was that the lane was wide enough that the open door didn't break on the concrete barrier, and that the door was sturdy enough not to swing back and crush his leg.

Gathering all of his breath, and forcing his throat to unlock itself. Eyes still on the concrete, he turned his mouth to the open door and bellowed, "MCGEE, LEVEL SEVEN!"

Because McGee was his other male agent that was still on flat ground, not dangling in the air. Because McGee was the one closest to his agent that was swinging like pendulum.

His left hand stayed on the steering wheel, his knuckles white with tension as he tightly controlled the car. His right hand was occupied with holding onto his already cocked gun.

He didn't try to avert his eyes, to try and take another glance up and see all those feet that separate his agent and the earth. Not because he couldn't control the car and do it at the same time.

No, it was because...Leroy Jethro Gibbs was a coward.

* * *

><p>Miraculously, he felt the solid of concrete catch on his fingers. His fingers—not his whole hand—had caught the concrete by his…<p>

He couldn't remember the name of the bones in his fingers.

He'd heard Ducky say the names probably a thousand times each, and yet he still didn't know what the middle knuckle in his fingers was called.

'_And you'll probably die not knowing too…Right.'_

Because even though a part of his fingers were holding on tight to the ledge, the rest of his body was dangling. A deadweight hanging stories high in the air.

With only the strength in a portion of his fingers holding him up.

Gravity was working against him. By all intents and purposes ten clutching fingers, wasn't enough to hold up an almost two hundred pound man?

If he could just manage to get his palms wrapped around the edge….then he'd be able to pull himself up…

From the way he was dangling, his head was tilted up and back, eyes staring blurrily at the roof of the parking garage. It took him a few more seconds that he didn't have to realize that his vision was being obscured by sweat.

_Sweat_, he refused to acknowledge that it could be something else.

And as it were, as soon as he tried to hoist himself enough the clutch the ledge with his palms, with his luck—he would slip.

Digging his short nails harsher against the cold concrete, he managed a shallow breath.

"_HELP!"_

He could still hear the engine of the car the wife—no, she was a _terrorist_—had commandeered. Heard it, as it revved down, continuing in spirals. Just leaving the helpless person she had left behind a victim to sweaty hands and gravity.

McGee certainly hadn't caught her, if her car was still going, and DiNozzo hoped McGee wasn't in situation parallel to his—or worse.

The terrorist would continue to the bottom of the parking garage, to be met with the likes of Ziva David and one Leroy Jethro Gibbs.

He sure hoped he wouldn't ruin the Probie and Ziva's dinners with the sight of his body splattering against the ground floor.

His dangling feet were numb from his blood rushing to his toes, in a valiant effort he gently nudged below him. Trying to see if the levels were close enough together that he might be able to get a foothold.

They weren't.

And he couldn't.

McGee, McGee he knew would puke for a week if he saw the result of what was about to happen. Maybe a month, if Tony had underestimated Tim's amount of affection for him.

Ziva, she would probably have a comment to retort with. Might even mourn her a bit in her own way, and then very, _very_, soon—she would go on like she always did.

Gibbs…..

'_Would probably find somebody else to head slap,' _the cynical side of himself whispered like poison in his ear. Even as Tony did his best to clamp his fingers down even harder.

Because after seven years, Tony knew how Gibbs would react. Gibbs would react the only way he knew how—with his own self-destruction.

He was panting with the effort of holding himself, he had realized it a little while ago. Drawing the slightest amount of breath, he screeched with as much strength as he could.

"_SOMEBODY HELP!"_

In response, he heard something glorious….the sound of another engine—coming closer. This car was different from the one the terrorist drove, this one was coming for justice instead of destruction.

And yet, just when Tony thought he couldn't have gotten a better reward. He heard the voice of one Leroy Jethro Gibbs, booming over the rip-roaring sound of two engines….

"_MCGEE. LEVEL SEVEN!"_

Right the moment the echoes of the words stopped reverberating in his ears, apart from the sound of engines racing each other, he heard pounding footsteps. And as the pounding footsteps came closer, he could make out the sound of heavy breathing too.

Soon, a face appeared over the concrete ledge.

Tony locked eyes with a sweaty, wide-eyed, McGee.

"Tony!" The kid yelled, even though he was staring right at him. Tony decided he would let him get away with it though, considering the fact that he was also looking as dangled over the side of a stories high parking structure.

"Little help here, McGee?" He hated the fact that that came out in a gasp, Tony could handle muscle strain all he needed to.

But the physical feeling of his chest muscles heaving from too little oxygen…..He hated that.

Tony watched as McGee nodded quickly, then reached forward and wrapped his soft chubby hands around DiNozzo's straining forearms.

He watched, while the weight of a ball and shackle steadily attached itself to each angle, gravity's new trick in the war to make Anthony DiNozzo end as a splat on the ground. McGee's face turned steadily redder, as the bio-medical engineer major forgot to breathe in.

The kid's sweaty arms were shaking around Tony's, his forearms bulging with not enough muscle. And from the position they were in, Tony couldn't help him either. All he could do was desperately try and maintain his lacking ten fingered grip on the ledge.

He could see the white of McGee's eyes, the droplets of sweat beading on his forehead and cheeks, as he tried to keep a co-worker from falling to his death.

'_Just an everyday day on the job.'_

Tony wanted to be able to say something to McGee, anything. Nausea was swimming through his stomach, and he had an increasing sickening feeling that he knew what was about to happen.

And from the emotions plain as day on McGee's face as the Probie slid forward more towards the ledge, his boots loosing traction. McGee knew too.

But just as clearly, neither were ready to relinquish in a losing battle.

'_Close your eyes,' _that familiar gruff voice said again, _'because I know how much of an idiot you are, and I know what you're about to do. You know what'll happen if you look down.'_

Obediently, his eyes slid shut, and the best he could—he tilted his face upwards.

If he had looked down, though he had no fear of heights, the vertigo would've sent him spinning. In the spin, he would've lost the tentative hold he did have. And though he appreciate McGee, if Tony's cramping fingers slipped, they had maybe a minute or two before he was sent pummeling.

McGee could hold him, he just couldn't pull him.

With his eyes shut, Tony could hear a low wailing—like an alarm. The two engines sounded idle now, and if he thought back a moment, he could've sworn he remembered hearing a gunshot.

Dear God, he hoped it was either the concrete or the terrorist that had the bullet in it.

* * *

><p>When you are about to die, maybe your life does flash before your eyes.<p>

People in law enforcement, the NCIS MCRT especially should be able to add credit or discredit this theory.

If you were to ask McGee if he had ever experienced something like this, he most likely would've said yes. McGee had the uncanny ability to think in the dramatics, even more so than Tony did.

If you were to ask Ziva, she most likely would've said no. With a confusing messed up idiom included somewhere in the answer, she might've told you that the fact that she was alive still was the truth that she could not have seen her whole life play before her eyes.

If you were to ask Gibbs, you wouldn't get an answer. Maybe because Gibbs saw his life; that fateful train ride, the first time he held his baby girl, the day he got the news—everyday, in the every little day tasks. Maybe Gibbs did not need any more life or death experiences to be haunted with the ghosts of his life. Or maybe, Gibbs had just never had one of those experiences.

Either way, you would be lucky to get an answering grunt out of the man.

Now, here, swinging high in the sky, Tony did not see some sentimental montage of his life flashing before his eyes.

No, instead Tony consciously thought about the important moment from his life…..As he felt the pinky finger of his right hand sliding in a sweaty-streak off the ledge.

_His first memory of playing the piano with his mother._

The same fingers that were now frantically clutching onto life, had once fumbled their way through a children's rendition of _Twinkle Twinkle Little Star._

Tony's chest _hurt_, and somewhere he could hear the ringing silence that had been left in the wake of the low wailing alarm.

Someone had shut it off.

The feeling of his right ring, middle, and index finger falling off the ledge made his stomach lurch. His thumb soon followed.

Still, Tony kept his eyes shut.

_The day the nanny hurried him out of his mother's bedroom. Her stiff form still on the bed. Tony glanced behind his shoulder one more time at the doorway. He was intuitive child, and knew that the empty bottles of pills on his mother's bedside table meant that she wasn't getting up again._

That should've been the day that would forever have been branded as the moment his life fell apart. And at the time, it had been. _He_, at least, had thought at the time that things couldn't have possibly gotten any worse.

Tony's shoulder muscles trembled, and McGee breathing sounded like the panting of a horse. Only his left hand remained on the ledge now, and he was still holding as tight as he could with it even as he felt the pads of his fingers slipping off the smooth surface. His right was held only in a desperately clutching grip, by McGee's hand.

Tony's fingers were sliding and sliding.

The weights on his ankles were getting heavier by the minute.

His eyes still closed, distantly—he heard the sound of an engine flaring again.

_Anthony DiNozzo Sr.'s manservant (which everybody knew was just a less degrading form of the word—butler) stood in front of a twelve year old Anthony DiNozzo Jr. Jr. was being told that day that he was to pack his bags, he was going to military school. On the day he departed Jr.'s father hadn't even come to say goodbye. That was the day he learned what being disowned was like._

For a while _that _day had tied with the day of his mother's death for top place on his lists of Worsts. Those two days were days that had each individually wrecked his life in their own way.

'_Maybe today will top the charts? The day you die?'_

The slick pads of his left hand were sliding off the cement, and he felt McGee's clammy grip tightening.

Today, this hour, was going to be when Anthony DiNozzo died.

He just hoped Ducky, or Abby, or _someone _was smart enough to keep Gibbs away from the terrorist. And later the bourbon.

Damn, he wish he had the breath in his lungs to look up at McGee and tell him to make sure the basement door was kept barred and locked. To make sure that he at least cut Gibbs off from his more favored weapons.

"Boss," he heard McGee panting in the comn in his ear—the one Tony had in his own ear that everyone seemed to have completely forgotten about.

"I can't hold him much longer."

_He'd gone from Peoria and Philadelphia, and now he was in Baltimore. He'd gotten a decent job there, one he liked, and a partner he saw as a brother. Now they were in a surveillance van in the backstreets, while in his apartment faraway sat a black velvet box. Something he hoped his wonderful girlfriend, Wendy would accept._

At the time, he had thought his life had been coming together—he'd been foolish. That life he had pathetically been stitching together for himself on a shaky foundation. It had been getting ready to go further places—it had been getting ready to be torn down.

"Hold him McGee," a voice—this time in his ear—growled. Tony wished he had the breath, and the privacy to talk to Gibbs one last truthful time before he fell to his death.

His left hand was clutching air.

Now…..now only McGee's shaking and sweaty hands were holding him from being a concrete ornament.

_She said yes. Wendy, the woman he loved with all his might had told him yes. _

Tony had had dreams of a white picket fence and a house in the suburbs. Children running around everywhere and maybe a dog—Tony didn't hate dogs too terribly much.

The sweating was starting to intensify, and Tony was sliding in centimeters—McGee's grip tightened to the point where he knew he would have pre-rigmortus bruises.

McGee was losing his grip, and Gibbs and Ziva were eerily silent in his ear. Maybe Ziva was just out of range.

But that wasn't what mattered. What mattered was that even though there was so much more he _needed _to say, he didn't have any breath to waste. Probie was about to inadvertently drop him to his death, Tim didn't deserve that sort of thing on his conscious.

Though he couldn't bring himself to open his eyes, words that sounded more like breath than his actual voice manage to form.

"Tim," he made sure to use his first name—and he wondered what McGee's visual reaction to that might've been, "It's okay. It's okay. Just let go."

"No!" Came the shocked reply from above him, and if he had the breath—Tony would've laughed. Because it shocked him, even now, just how different they were. It could've been the age difference that did it, it could've been the numbers of years on the job Tony had over him, or could've simply been the fact that Tony had spent more time around Gibbs. But the end result was still one very naïve Probie, who didn't just seem to get that this situation was screwed.

_His partner was dirty. His brother was dirty, and because he was Tony's brother—he would let him walk. It made DiNozzo's skin crawl._

Even to this day Tony sometime regretted it. Out of curiosity at odd times, he would check the recent going-ons of Baltimore crime—just to see if there were any patterns he recognized. Letting his dirty brother go had compromised his morals, and more importantly—it had knocked down one entire side of that shaky foundation he had built.

McGee's hands had slid all the way up to his wrists now.

_He was standing in front of the bed. The bedroom door was closed, and his tux was hanging on the back. I the closet should've been her wedding dress, where he couldn't see it. But on the bed, sat on crème colored enveloped, and on it was one word: Tony. _

And with that, the other side of the foundation had been demolished. Tony had spent a good portion of his life trying to haphazardly piece together that settlement, without help from anyone.

McGee's fingers were shaking now, and Tony's eyes scrunched together harder.

And in a months' time, it had been completely obliterated. Wiping out everything he wanted so badly, everything he had worked so hard for.

McGee's fingers convulsed…

And Tony began to fall

"_TONY!"_

* * *

><p>Just when he'd began to wonder if the sight of him, falling from a seven story height, hair spread out like a halo around of his head—was something Kate was drawing from the heaven she had believed so ardently in.<p>

Just when he'd given the fight with his stomach up and prepared his body for the freefall, and to ignore the landing.

Just when he'd started to fall, did another pair of hands grab him?

Tony's eyes flew open wide, as he felt his own large hands being interlocked with ones of the same size. Callouses scratched against his skin, and he stared at the face that had appeared to him over the barrier…..

The face of Leroy Jethro Gibbs.

Gibbs' face wasn't red, his eyes weren't blown wide, and sweat wasn't beading off of him. Instead, Tony found dry and steady shackles grasping him steadily, his face showing nothing and his jaw so clenched it looked like he would break his teeth.

But Gibbs wasn't just _holding _him there, he was—slowly, but surely—with flexed muscles and braced legs, pulling him up.

Pulling him up and over, out of destruction and bloodshed, and into the permanent setting of his feet on the ground. Gibbs hand still around his, he collapsed and pulled them both back on their butts, panting—their backs leaned back against the wall.

"_Rule number five, you don't waste good." Then he handed DiNozzo a new NCIS agent's badge, and delivered a headslap._

Tony had thought, multiple times throughout his life, that his entire world was crumbling. And in the opposite, he could even say he'd had a few incidents that might have been indicative to him as opportunities to build a life for himself.

He'd had a lot of hit and misses over the years.

He turned his head to the side, still panting for breath, and locked eyes with the man sitting beside him.

Yes, he'd had a lot of hit and misses over the years. No, NCIS was not one of them, nor would it ever be.

Gibbs gave a little smirk, but his eyes promised hell and retribution once he was done spluttering for breath.

Because the badge strapped to his belt, and the man sitting next to him.

They were the most permanent things he'd ever had in his life.

And just to mess with his head a little, he turned to him and said….

"I love you, Boss."

* * *

><p><em>an: Crappy story wrote it on like no sleep. Please read top a/n. AND COULD SOMEONE PLEASE TELL ME THE LAST EPISODE TONY HAS SAID "ON YOUR SIX, BOSS." IN. THIS IMPORTANT STUFF PEOPLE._


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